Heh.. just listenin' to music, er.. hehe.. Yeah. It's all good. Anyways, Welcome to the Brad Show! Okay.. fine. Not the Brad show. Woo.. I'm
in a weird mood tonight. I'm not nearly as tired as I usually am, which means there actually *is* an intro and conclusion.. well, I haven't
gotten to the conclusion yet.. we'll see what I'm like in an hour, won't we... heh.

I've gotten one or two pretty good submissions for Anime Brads.. but it's just going to suck if there aren't more submissions.. You don't want
these people's art to win just because they were the only people to submit something, do you? .. well, maybe you do. But I don't! Anyways.. do
what you must. If you can't draw, but know a friend who can.. get them to do it.. we'll uh, hook you both up or something. Get your art published
on a big page read by thousands of people! Heck, I'll throw in free props for your artwork collection website or something. Just DRAW, my monkeys,
drawwww.... *cough* right.

Next big announcement.. that's right.. Guest Appearance.. by popular demand... Heather will be answering some questions one day soon. I'll have
to get with her and talk to her about what day is best.. but if you want a question answered specifically by Heather (lewd comments will be discarded
and naughty things will be done to the sender), then send it in to me, and please put something pertaining to Heather in the subject. Like, "For Heather"
or something. Uh, as for next week, well, that'll just have to wait till next week, but I've got some people in mind.

Anyways, lots of FF8 stuff.. (whoa.. not AGAIN), but there are some actually good questions that *I* had when I went through the game.. stuff that
isn't really stupid that you would find out in 30 minutes if you kept playing *COUGH ODIN GEEZ COME ON COUGH* ... er,
ahem.. heh. Anyways, as I like to say.. ..dude.

Don't have kids if you're going to mess their lives up. If ya wanna mess your life up, go ahead, it's all yours. Have a kid
and mess their life up, and you just suck.

2 ff8 l33t 4 u!

*** The First in a Long Line of FF8 Spoilers.. for those of you who haven't finished the game, I'm sorry.. had to do it sometime.. ***

Hey, Brad, good to hear that you finished FF8! I only finished it a couple of days ago myself. Anyway,
Questions:

Only one word for it, "Finally". Not that it wasn't fun. I just am getting behind.. two games to finish, and two more coming out this month, yikes!

1. What in the world was Ultimecia's motivation? yeah, we know she had this fixation with compressing
time, but _why_? You don't find out anywhere in the game, it's all "Ultimecia's evil and wants to
compress time, we have to whup her butt!" I wanna know why! At least in FF7 we knew why Sephiroth was a
twisted freak who wanted to smash a big hunk of rock into the planet, they went to great pains to make
sure you knew. I think that this is a major story omission.

Well, in the Time Compression, she was the only being able to exist, basically.. or that's what I understand from it. Either that or
it was one of those, "I rule the future.. but that's just not enough!" type plots, where, well, .. she was hungry. Hungry like a W-- er, Hi Wily :)i ruv roo!

2. Why didn't we get to see Squall find out that Laguna was his Dad? After Ward and Kiros cryptically
spilled the beans on the Ragnarok in Disc 3, I was expecting some kind of humourous scene with Squall
holding his head in his hands and thinking "This moron is my father?" Oh well. Better left to the
imagination, I spose.

We weren't told Relm was the daughter of Shadow either. You weren't explicitly told that Link's favorite toys as a young kokri was my little
pony. It was never revealed that Samus Aran is really a --.. oh they did tell us that one. Oh well, you win some, you lose some. Deal.

3. Why is everyone so obsessed with using limit breaks at the end of FF8? I beat Ultimecia just fine
without using a single limit break, just lots of Ultimas and Meteors.

Just faster that way.. and some people didn't have the Ultima and Meteor to shoot off.. I, for one, had about 20 Ultima to my name
the entire game. Some people would consider sitting around and draining a couple hundred Ultima off a Gas-Station-esque draw point to be more
cheating than using a couple limit breaks. ;)

Fred

Oh yeah, well, my two pair beat your stupid jacks anyways...

*** FF8 Spoilers..(not too bad at all though) ***

Brad the Oracle,

I was playing FF8 the today, collecting Bomb cards
from the Fire Cave (after I saved over my 23 hour
game)and when I got the 4th one in a row, instead of
being a Bomb card, it said "Aquired Krysta Card"! For
some reason, I got a Lv. 6 boss card. Is it some sort
of strange glitch? Has any one else had this happen?
Or is it just some sort of delusion induced by my
intense rage after saving over my only file of my 23
hour game?

Son of Sabin

Brad:There are times when you can get a rare card instead of a normal one. If you look in your Card submenu, you'll see on the higher
cards down in the righthand corner of the screen it lists the enemies that they can be acquired from. Like once, I got a Shumi Tribe card from
a T-Rexsaur. Not a bad card, either, heh heh. And yes, Mike, I know you have like 13 of them... it's okay, I modded all my cards at the end
of my FF8 game anyways.. so nyeh.

Here, naughty Marlboro...!

*** FF8 Enemy Location and Items Won from them Spoilers ***

Brad, I got an FF8 question- Yeah, doesn't everyone?
Any advice on how to fight more Marlboros and Adamantoises? I very rarely fight Marlboros, and I die, but now I have
things junctioned to ST-Defense. I have not seen any Adamantoises yet, the internet says to fight them on the Island
Closest to Hell and the strategy guide says near Dollet. I have fought in both of those places a whole lot with no
success. Please answer this I am really getting frustrated.

-Jeffypop

Brad:Fly Ragnarok to Dollet, then head north a ways. You'll see an island that is kinda shaped like a Moon. A little wider
than Ragnarok, and it's got some beach on it.. walk around on the actual beach part.. within about 3 battles, you should have yourself
some Adamantoises.. if you're high enough level, you should win Adamantine from them. For the Marlboros, (I hate spelling that, I may even
be spelling it wrong, I'm using your spelling. :P) .. Fly near the Esthar Continent(Centra?). On the WEST side of the BIG forest north of Esthar,
there are a bunch of small islands. Land on one, check your menu for the location. DON'T WALK AROUND. If you find yourself on "Island Closest
to Heaven".. SAVE YOUR GAME Marlboros are nasty x 10^42. Make sure to have the person who has the Treatment command also have Status Defense
of 100% vs Beserk, Confuse, and Sleep, if possible. If not, then the sleep will wear off. Use treatment on your best character, then on the person
with Treatment, but leave one person down, or the Marlboro will Bad Breath you again. They're nasty guys, I actually just stole the tentacles from
them with the Mug command and then ran. :) But I was only like lv 30 at the time, and didn't have any GFs with ST-Defx4 yet.

"Will Sell Soul For Konami Games"

Oracle,

I was reading some of your older columns, and you mentioned Vandal Hearts 2.
Can you give me the system and release date for it? I just recently found a
copy of Vandal Hearts and I'm loving it.

Anthony Your name is Steve. Your name.. is Steve.

Brad:We show a release date of "4th Quarter" .. but that's a Japanese release date.. I'd actually kinda be shocked if Konami didn't
bring it over.. and I absolutely, positively, totally, without a doubt, loved(no really!) the first Vandal Hearts. It was so much fun.
It was the different win goals, all the variety, and the number of people on the fields was a lot of fun. Not to mention it was REALLY easy
for you to lose someone quick in that game. Very tough. Of course, I beat it without one person dying in any battle...I really did. I even
took the one scenario where everyone's supposed to run away and escape from town.. and, uh, I whooped all those guys' butts. At the normal
level. I just got good at that game. I still die in FFT :(

You think it's a quickie.. but itssssnot. (ew)

*** FF8 Spoilers ***

Is there anywhere on disc 4 that i can get my weapons upgraded, or buy items?

Brad:Heh, I hear there is a person on the Ragnarok who can upgrade your items.. I just used the Tonberry GF's "Call Shop"
and the "Call Junk Shop" from Doomtrain. Other than that, though, I think you're SOL on the item/junk help.

SeeD Rank, up, down, up, down.. vomit.

Hi Brad,

Can you please tell me some reasons about why your Seed Rank may go down in
FF8?

Brad:If you spend too much time walking around without "progressing the story" then you end up losing a SeeD rank. I hear this
happens much more quickly at higher SeeD ranks, and also, I noticed that while I did a lot of story-not-progressing, my SeeD Rank didn't seem
to dip below 15.

Hi, my name is _____ and my english sucks.

um,i was wondering why you knew abot breath of fire4 first.
becuase when i went to the copcom site they didin't show anything about breath of fire4.
can you tell me why you knew about breath of fire4

Brad:That's easy. I'm psycho. er.. waiit..*shrugs*

Okay, no more FF8 Stuff from here down.. not that there's much column left...

I ask of you two minor questions...
1) Any hints on beating Decus and Vesper in SO2? I swear am getting SOO
SICK of Decus doing "Spicule"! The two of them are too frickin' fast!!
AHHHHH!!
2)Have you ever heard of the game "Princess Maker" for Playstation? Looks
a little different, but cool. You should see some of the jobs you can make
your daughter do!!
If you could answer these questions for me, I would be most humbled O
Mighty One.

~Rhi

P.S- Have you had you monkey today?

Brad:1. Get Bunny shoes at the Bunny Races or in the Cave of Trials. They'll help so much you'll wonder how you did anything without them.
Also, check to see that comprehend is off. If it's on, you get more JP at each level, but it slows your characters down quite a bit. (Hi, I'm an SO2 addict, and
.. damnit, I'm proud).
2. Uhh.. little girls.. nervous.. fear.. DESTROY! >X( --little-girls--> *BOOM* ... oh, damn.. he does that sometimes. (In other words, uh, "no, I haven't heard of that.. sounds sick. :P)

You know, Heather's Money. Or at least, Scott says so.

In a recent column with Veronica as the Q&A person (Don't kill me! I just
want to be the first to answer it!) someone asks if there are any RPG's that
don't use a money system to get items. Ronni didn't know, but I do! Dragon
Force for Sega Saturn by Workng Designs (the game ROCKS!) might be
Strategy/RPG, but it does not use money at all. Instead, you search the
castles and find items to use, such as swords and armor.

~SmartLaine

Brad:Smart indeed. Good call on those games. I actually never played Dragon Force.. I just watched a bunch of other people play it..
I never really did much with the Saturn. Not that I'm against it.. just, well, you guys know how much free time I have.. ;)

Well, maybe.. but.. well...

Hey brad the almighty Oracle that everyone hates(jk),
I gotta question for ya. Since you are playing Soul Reaver I would like
you to answer this question. Why is Soul Reaver considered an Adventure RPG.
I see the Adventure but no RPG elements. I havn't found a single piece of
evidence to classify this game as an RPG. Don't get me wrong, the game is
great and I love it. Even Zelda64 had evidence. Please answer this almighty
Oracle or one night when your sleeping I'll put Ice down your pants or I'll
put warm water in your hand and you'll find a yellow stain from your pants.

Chris Craig

Brad:Uh, why are you being so picky? It's got some elements of RPGs.. like, uh, bosses.. er.. uh, yeah, and magic, YEAH, magic..
and.. uh, EVIL UNDEAD VAMPIRES.. yeah! (For those who think that's redundant, Raziel isn't just undead.. he's UNDEAD UNDEAD.. woo.. ).. er..
as for the rest of it.. well, it's fun! .. and you can eat souls. That's cool. Okay, fine, we cover it because Mike said so, and he pushes the
button. You gonna die, man.

Obitu-Quickies

Hey Oracle guy..

Sony's founder Akio Morita has just reecently passed away :(

That sucks... :/ Not many deaths really get to me, and honestly, this one doesn't really personally affect me.. It sucks, but I'm not like
mourning. The recent death that really got me was DeForrest Kelley... that made me sad. :/

I want the Draw System to have my baby.

Matt.

Too late. Zacarena just called from the hospital. You're a daddy!

You know.. when the clowns eventually do eat you... you'll never see it
coming.

That's what you think.. I've got an anti-clown bazooka sittin' right here... been awake since World War 2. (Catch that reference, win a cookie!)

So Brad was that a Alannis Morisette quote at the end of your update or did
my eyes decieve me?!

Daniel.

Uh, of course it wasn't. I was just talkin' bout my pants. I do that a lot you know. And my tummy. But ya'll can't see that, because, well, it's
too cute for your eyes. :P

Words from the Wise One:

Well, that was probably the first full sized column in a little while.. er, heh. Just been crazy around this area recently. With El Nino and
all.. er.. or.. wait, that was like last year. Sorry, memory comes and goes... and when stupid scientists are playing with WAY TOO MUCH uranium in
Japan.. memory prices go up up up!... I'm going to the Bay Area this weekend. I'm gonna go get some neat stuff... you know what that means?
No. You don't. But Edge does... Saturday, Edge. To the rest... good night.